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A recent government audit wagged its finger at the Justice Department for spending $16 on muffins. It's a great story, a classic case of government abuse—and almost certainly not true, writes Kevin Drum at Mother Jones. Yes, the invoices show the department spent $4,200 on 250 muffins and similarly egregious amounts for cookies. "So did DOJ really pay $16 for muffins?" asks Drum. "Of course not." The problem is that the auditors accepted hotel invoices as gospel—and they never are.

His theory: Someone at DOJ gave the hotel a budget. The hotel then divvied up charges into a handful of categories, instead of invoicing every piece of food served. "I'm here to tell you that this happens All. The. Time," writes Drum. "I've been involved in what feels like a thousand conferences of this kind, and I'd be shocked if it happened any other way." The pricey muffin is a "myth," all thanks to auditors "who broke out a calculator and mistakenly assumed they could calculate actual costs this way." His full post is here.

In other news, the January 2003 estimate by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that the budget office had come up with "a number that's something under $50 billion." for the costs of the Iraqi war also seems to have been almost certainly not true.

Outrageous

Sep 23, 2011 1:32 AM CDT

$16 muffins = sensationalism? True. However, everyone in the government and most business-people know that if you don't spend your entire budget, you'll never get the same amount the next time. It's time to stop spending the whole budget. Those that create the budget need to be realistic and realize that sometimes a muffin costs $x, and other times it costs $y.

crafter67

Sep 23, 2011 12:24 AM CDT

time to start itemizing and pinching the pennies Justice Department...